Blues in the Night: The Harold Arlen Legacy

Blues in the Night ( Or at any time of the  day )  Of all the great songwriters who created the enduring American Popular Songbook, Harold Arlen was the most embedded in the jazz and blues world. Certainly Gershwin had his Rhapsody in Blue but that was a classical interpretation of valid blues elements and it was purely an orchestral and piano version. The blues have to be sung. Without  lyrics, the Rhapsody in Blue cannot convey the sadness, despair and heartache that comprise the essence of the lamentations inherent in the blues tradition. Despite the Black American origins of the blues, Harold Arlen, a white Jewish composer, immersed himself in the jazz and blues music as a Buffalo NY teeneager in the 1920's. His father was a noted cantor, the singer who illuminates Jewish religious services. Arlen said that his father was the best theme and variations singer he ever heard with much of his singing totally improvised. He would often incorportae minor musical motifs in the Hebraic tradition as well as snippets of some of his son's own songs. Arlen as a pianist and singer was much given to improvising and even his written music has a looseness and unpredictability that is characteristic of all improvisational passages.
Blues in the Night is a series of twelve-and eight-bar phrases between two separate segments with two measures written to be whistled. If Arlen captured the urban blues tradition, Lyricist Johnny Mercer was the rural poet laureate who wrote of small towns in the South and a longing for a more traditional American way of life. Right from the beginning which exclaims " My momma done told me-when I was in knee pants -my momma done told me Son " .   She explains to her son that " A woman's a worrisome things who'll leave ya to sing the Blues in the Night." Mercer also supplies lyrics for a female singer to say exactly the same thing about a man who'll also leave her to sing the Blues in the Night.
To represent the male and female versions of the song who better than Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. In my opinion, these two artists have done more than anyone else to preserve and elevate what is most compelling about the Great American Songbook.
Sinatra's version is rueful and laconic as he recounts his momma's admonition not to have his heart broken by a two-faced woman. The Nelson Riddle arrangement stays in the background and occasionally emerges to accentuate a certain vocal passage.  You also can hear the whistling phrases as they were written by Arlen.

PERFORMANCE LINK:  http://youtu.be/Kn_WgvXZEFs
 

In contrast, Ella Fitzgerald provides a live wailing version backed by Count Basie and jazzman Zoot Sims . Ella is the undisputed queen of  vocal improvisation which is highlighted throughout this exciting version.

http://youtu.be/3IG8dNZIcvQ
PERFORMANCE LINK:

To further portray the versatilty of Ella Fitzgerald's artistry, listen to her offer a different version of the song done in a recording studio. It may be more restrained but it proves that you can shout or whisper the blues. Each singer  brings his or her own experience and temperment to such a personal expression of bone-weary emotion..

PERFORMANCE LINK http://youtu.be/niOkDUnyBnA